Not Quite Dead (28 page)

“Causing a public disturbance is the charge. The report allows he made quite a spectacle of himself. Caused a passel of damage at the newspaper in which he is, or was, employed.”

I turned to Elmira Royster: “An interesting case, would you not say so, Nurse Slatin?”

“Indeed, Doctor. I declare, Dr. Rush, that I should be ever so grateful for an opportunity to observe the patient.”

I did not catch what passed between them, but instant agreement followed. “However,” said Dr. Rush, “I must caution you folks that the patient is still delusional, though he appears perfectly normal in all respects.”

“I believe that is the case with many men,” replied Elmira Royster, and I wondered what she meant by that.

R
R.RUSH KNOCKED
politely, and after a considerable pause we were favored with a “come in, please” from within—uttered, or rather sung, in a reedy, preoccupied voice. Through the open door we were favored with a view
of
the occupant, dressed in black, stooped over a table, and writing with a quill—a virtual emblem of the poet at work; in fact I suspected it to be a pose for our benefit.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Rush,” he said without looking up from his work. “It is good of you to come.”

“Please forgive the distraction, Mr. Griswold. And how goes the writing, sir?”

“Painful and laborious as always, but we carry on.” The patient had not yet looked up from his work.

“Dr. Chivers and Nurse Slatin, permit me to introduce you to the Reverend Rufus Griswold. Mr. Griswold, these folks have come from Baltimore to observe our work here. I trust that is agreeable to you.”

After a pause, the patient set pen, ink, and foolscap at precise angles on the table’s leather surface and rose to greet us. As Dr. Rush continued to explain our business to him, Elmira Royster silently drew
my attention to the foolscap, on which a poem, or part of one, had been written and rewritten, its words and phrases scratched out and replaced until there scarcely remained a word visible. With difficulty I made out the following:

And peering through a lattice
Of a humble cottage near
,
I see a face of beauty
,
Adown which glides a tear
,
A rose amid her tresses
Tells that she would be gay
,
But a thought of some deep sorrow
Drives every smile away
.

“It reads like Eddie on a bad day,” whispered Elmira. “It does not scan—and what in heaven does
adown
mean?”

I did not attempt to reply, having no appetite for poetry, well written or not.

With remarkable care, Griswold had transformed his tiny room into a miniature library-study consisting of a couch, a writing desk, a chair, and a small Turkey carpet. Every vertical surface was filled with books, neatly stacked in improvised bookcases made of raw lumber from the asylum workshop.

The patient appeared to be perhaps thirty, slender, sharp-nosed, and pale, with hair of Romantic length and a parson’s beard—the latter no doubt a relic of his years as a Baptist clergyman, suggesting that the transition from preacher to man of letters remained incomplete.

As we were led to expect, Griswold did not seem the least bit mad. He greeted us like a perfect gentleman, apologized for the size of the accommodations, and bade Elmira Royster to seat herself on the couch. Of course, hardly had she settled her skirt when Dr. Rush took up the space beside her with unseemly eagerness. I preferred to stand.

Seating himself at the desk, Griswold spoke of his days here at the institution as though it were a trip to a spa. Seemingly, the peace and quiet had done him no end of good. In fact, after years devoted to the selfless tasks of an editor, critic, and mentor to poets, he at last
felt the creative sap coursing through his own veins, praise God, and had been writing almost nonstop ever since.

“I expect you would find me impertinent,” said Elmira Royster, “if I were to ask for a short reading. I am evuh so fond of poetry, suh, and I hear so little, and if you were to favor us with a verse I should be so pleased.” If her James River accent had become anymore pronounced, we could have hummed to it.

“It would be an honor I assure you, ma’am,” replied Griswold. (It was clear that, deranged or no, the editor retained an eye for a well-turned ankle.) After a moment of reflection and throat clearing, he began to read aloud, in a high-pitched, ministerial drone.

She whom I see there weeping
,
Few save myself do know,-
A flower in blooming blighted
By blasts of keenest woe
.
She has a soul so gentle
,
That as a harp it seems
,
Which the light airs wake to music
Like that we hear in dreams
…

As he read, Elmira Royster raised her handkerchief to her mouth as though moved, and I distinctly heard a suppressed snicker. At my silent urging she regained her poise, and after a pause at the end, made admirable use of her handkerchief, dabbing at one eye as though touched to the marrow.

“Such skillful alliteration, suh! ‘Blooming, blighted, and blasts’— do you not think it remarkable, Dr. Chivahs?”

“Indeed so, Nurse Slatin. I have never heard anything quite like it.” In truth, I found it disconcerting to witness Elmira Royster dissemble with the skill of accustomed practice, indicating a thespian bent she held in common with her fiancé.

However, as a practitioner of Moral Treatment, Dr. Rush was having none of it, and proceeded to enunciate his objections: “To me the verse did not read properly aloud, sir. In order for the speaker to make sense, the phrasing became most unnatural. And I do not see how anything can be ‘blasted by woe’.”

In an instant, Griswold fired at Rush a look of such undiluted
venom that I should not have been surprised had he tried to plunge his pen into the doctor’s eye.

“Remember, Mr. Griswold,” Rush continued, not in the least discomfited by this outlay of malice. “You are under treatment for delusional behavior. As your doctor it is my duty to dispute you on errors of fact. If you have a rebuttal, please let us hear it.”

The patient did not reply, but fell into a sulk and refused to look at anyone. “A typical manifestation of delusion, when confronted with reality,” observed Dr. Rush. “First the rage, then the whimper.”

“I do hope you will forgive me, suh, if I ask you a question,” said Elmira Royster, coy as usual.

“By all means,” replied Dr. Rush; with his fat face and cottony halo of hair, he could have been the sun itself.

“I wonder, was not the patient exhibiting the normal reaction of an artist to criticism—first rage, then a disappointment and sadness?”

“You intrigue me, ma’am. Please continue.”

“You will think me a terrible fool, but is it suitable to apply Moral Treatment to a poet? If we did, I do rightly fear there would be no poetry at all.”

Dr. Rush became thoughtful—though I doubt that there was much in it other than the desire to ingratiate himself further. “You make an excellent point, Nurse Slatin,” he replied. “We must always take into account the divine madness behind music and art.”

I resisted the urge to lash out at the both of them, for disseminating Eddie’s pernicious cant.

“I thank you, nurse,” said Griswold, who had emerged from his sulk and now affected a dignified air. “Your defense of the poet was most gracious, and profound.”

“Indeed so,” I said, eager to redirect the discussion, which Elmira had an unnerving way of diverting from its charted course. “And if such a distinction may be made in the case of the poet, perhaps it might also apply to the possessed.”

This inspired the puzzled silence I had hoped for, and I forged on. “Perhaps we scientists have no business meddling with people who see goblins and ghosts. No matter how consistently one might expose a thing to be fraudulent or mistaken, one can never prove absolutely that it is not ever true.”

“In the same way that science will never prove that our Lord did
not rise from the dead,” said Elmira Royster, entirely distorting the meaning of what I had just said.

“Amen,” replied Griswold, and a bond was forged between them, and it occurred to me that, in steering this discussion, she possessed a better compass than I did.

The young doctor was by no means put out by any of this—on the contrary, he seemed to take extraordinary delight in each argument, however inane. “I declare that this is the most fascinating discussion I have undergone in months,” he said. “I promise you that I shall take your points under advisement, and bring it up with Dr. Kirkbride at the earliest opportunity.”

He produced a notebook, reseated himself on the couch, and began scribbling with great intensity, ceding the floor to me, which I had already ceded to Elmira Royster.

Rising from the couch, she leaned upon Griswold’s desk so that her wrist and a part of her forearm stood approximately six inches from his nose. Certainly he could smell violet.

It is almost indecent, the ease with which a woman can induce a man to explain himself fully. Were I to attempt the same feat I might have cajoled the patient for hours, bullied him with my education, frightened him with his grim prognosis and their terrible cures; as a physician I might have emptied my entire arsenal, and accomplished less than the baring of a woman’s wrist.

“Are you acquainted with Philadelphia, ma’am?” Griswold asked in muted tones, as though about to provide directions to his club.

“I am surely a stranger here,” she replied. “A Southern lady new to the city.”

“When you are settled in you will note that every street is laid out at right angles. As a native Vermonter and a man of artistic bent, I seek respite from the stultifying regularity that has been imposed upon the city by the founders. Being sensitive to ugliness in all its forms, I am frequently drawn to Dock Street as it winds its irregular course, like a country road, to a land of the imagination.”

It is impossible to adequately portray the self-congratulatory unctuousness of the man. He reminded me of a clergyman who has taken up the selling of miracle cures.

“Every evening at eight o’clock,” Griswold continued, “I have made it my practice to leave the office and take a stroll. Dock Street
at night, free of the commercial bustle, with its wet cobblestones aglimmer in the intermittent gaslight, becomes a tonic for what I like to call the poetic sensibility.”

“Aglimmer?”
I asked, being unable to restrain myself.

“Aglow,” he tersely replied, and returned his attention to Elmira Royster, who appeared, of course, utterly rapt.

“I confess that in such moments, alone in the city, I feel closest to what I like to call the poetic muse. It is a level of sensitivity very much to be striven for. But of course, once found, it must be expressed morally and responsibly, and true to our covenant with our Lord. In this I am sure you agree, ma’am.”

To my horror, it seemed almost as though they were about to kiss.

“I could not possibly agree more,” she whispered, her vowels like honey on a stick.”
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength
’ “

At this, Griswold’s excitement reached such a pitch that he nearly sprang from his chair. “The first commandment! How could I have missed it?”

“
‘They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy
…

“Don’t tell me … I have it—Luke! Luke …” Unable to name CHAPTER and verse, Griswold literally blushed.

“CHAPTER eight, verse thirteen,” she replied, and smiled down at him as though it was their shared secret.

I confess I could barely listen to this pompous, sanctimonious banter. “Is that why you so disapproved of Edgar Poe?” I asked, with no good objective in mind.

“Of course,” snapped Griswold. “He did not glorify the Lord. He directed the reader’s attention to ungodly thoughts, and a morbid cast of mind.”

“Because of your dislike for him, did you hound him with a newspaper clipping and a bag of teeth?”

Griswold turned to Dr. Rush: “Is this gentleman a fellow patient?”

Before Dr. Rush could summon a response, Elmira Royster intervened. “I do agree completely, Mr. Griswold,” she said, while her eyes sent me an unmistakable message:
Shut up
.

A period of sulking on Griswold’s part followed; she smoothed his hackled fur until he deigned to continue.

“It was in that poetic state of mind, attuned with the poetic muse, that I became immersed in the gathering night, the stars above in their ancient transcendence. By some instinct I turned—and there was a gentleman on the walkway some distance behind. I could discern neither his face nor form; I could not even tell whether he was moving or standing still. He was an outline against the sky, framed by the warehouse at the curve of the street.

“Even at that distance, I knew that he was looking at me. And against all reason, I knew exactly who he was.

“I turned away with a shudder and quickened my pace forward. When I felt I had covered sufficient distance I turned around again—

“The figure had decreased the distance between us by half!

“My unease surrendered to panic as I broke into a dead run, glancing behind me at intervals, at the trim figure in the frock coat, whose face I could discern more clearly each time he passed under a lamp, and who was gaining on me with every step.

“I stopped, exhausted. I cried out, bent forward, hearing no sound but my lungs crying out for air.

“With the fatalism of a man caught in a guillotine, I turned my head—and he was gone. May the Lord be praised!”

“Amen,” echoed Elmira Royster.

“Or so I thought at the time. I continued on my stroll, though no longer attuned to the poetic sensibility, until I reached the corner of Spruce Street, where a passing omnibus caught my eye—and I swear to Almighty Christ that in one window was the face of Edgar Poe! Oh, Ludwig! What have you done?”